The Powers That Be
by Epilogues
Summary: AU. The second generation are all trying to live ordinary lives, but the secrets they carry means that one wrong move could land them in serious trouble. All the characters feature but Emily, Naomi, Effy and Cook will likely feature most.


**Okay, this is an old piece I wrote about four years ago that I'm trying to rework, so please let me know what you think.**

**Originally this was a crossover with an old video game, but since there's no character or scenario crossover and only the powers I've given everybody are borrowed from the video game, I thought that with a bit of editing it would fit in the normal Skins category.**

**Anyway, the powers. They each have control over an element (fire, earth, wind, water), the powers are called psynergy and users of it are called adepts. I think that's about all that's needed at this point, but let me know if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy.**

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Naomi couldn't sleep. The mattress felt like it was made of wood (and it probably was), she couldn't stretch out in it, and she was freezing. Her cell was less than two meters in length and one and a half in width, had a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling and one tiny window. The light was switched off, forcibly for it was long passed 'lights out'. Naomi didn't have a clock but she guessed it was now closer to dawn than dusk.

She stood up, still wearing the over-sized white t-shirt she had been wearing when they had dragged her in here at 9am the previous morning, and began pacing. She wondered over to her window. It was just a few inches in diameter and thick metal bars covered the bulk of it. The view wasn't much; Naomi was on the fifth floor and all she could see was the prison's dull, lifeless grounds and the gate through which the guards came and went.

Naomi decided that the bars were worth a try, even though she didn't think she could survive a five story jump despite her wind psynergy. She gripped one of the steel bars in her hand and channeled all the power she could muster into her palm and sent burst after burst of searing lightning through the bar she held, closing her eyes with concentration, but it was all to no avail. Not even a scratch. She supposed that bars like that were not designed to be broken easily, or prison breaks would be much easier.

_Still, maybe if I had Emily's power... _ Naomi thought to herself, instantly the thoughts of Emily came pulsing through her mind, and she felt the tears begin to well up. _Will I ever see her again? Or will I be tortured in here until I die?_ Naomi tried to think positively, but she couldn't, she was trapped, without Emily. It wouldn't be long before she'd be taken from this ordinary prison and to a special Adept Containment Facility, and then all hope really would be lost. She collapsed on her bed gripping her forehead, trying to rid herself of those thoughts, but she couldn't. "FUCK!" She screamed out loud, and immediately regretted it; she might have gotten herself into trouble for being loud after lights out. Her fears were soon validated when she heard footsteps I the corridor, terror rising in the pit of her stomach.

_Oh, God, no_, She thought, hoping and praying that the footsteps would not stop outside her cell. But they did. Naomi heard the jingling of keys, then a key being inserted into the door, a lock turning, the door swinging open.

When the guard did not immediately grab her she looked up to find the shock of her life.

Stood in the doorway was someone who, while dressed in the uniform was certainly not a guard. With the keys in one hand and a half empty bottle of vodka in the other was Cook.

"You are fucking kidding me!" Naomi said, beginning to laugh but keeping her voice down, "You are fucking kidding me."

"What's wrong Naomikins? Ain't you pleased to see the Cookie Monster?" He asked, a grin spreading across his face. Naomi was grinning widely now, and she got up to embrace Cook.

"Forgive me for asking Cook, but has anybody else ever attempted a prison break while drinking a bottle of vodka?"

"First half to relax before we go in, second half for celebrations." Cook spoke as if it was obvious, before he plucked his phone out of a pocket as it vibrated. "Yeah I got her, Jay. OK, I'm on it." Cook hung up. "Naomikins we gotta move. JJ and Ems are watching the cameras and there's a guard, a real one, headed our way." Naomi stepped out of the door and cook swung it shut, locking it to make sure nothing looked out of place.

"Ems is here?" Naomi asked as she felt exitement but also concerns for Emily's safety fill her.

"Yeah, your girlfriend's here. Now let's go." Cook said as he pulled out a gun. Naomi raised an eyebrow. "Tranquilizers, Princess." Cook stated casually, as they began to jog. When Cook judged them to be safe he motioned for them to stop, creeping silently the rest of the way to their destination to avoid unnecessary risk of detection. When Cook opened the door to the security camera monitoring room JJ was seated at the main desk, watching the bank of cameras which covered an entire wall intently, while Emily was leaning against one of the walls also watching the cameras some of the time, while idly fiddling with her gun (she had made sure it wasn't loaded), though she didn't look too comfortable holding the weapon. Two guards lay unconscious slumped against the wall opposite to Emily, one of them in only boxer shorts, both tied up. Emily and JJ were dressed head to toe in black, looking the part.

Emily looked towards the door as it swung open and saw Cook enter, but her gaze remained fixated on the doorway, and sure enough, a second later, in came Naomi. She dropped the gun instantly and walked over to Naomi only vaguely aware of the noise the gun made as it hit the floor and Cook whispering at her to keep the noise down.

Naomi pulled Emily into a kiss, Emily whispering into Naomi's ear "I missed you." They had been parted less than twenty-four hours, yet somehow it felt like months.

"Save it ladies, we ain't out of this yet." Cook warned, taking a swig of his vodka while he spoke. "Naomikins, take this." Cook tossed her a rucksack and inside she found dark clothing, identical to the clothes everybody else was wearing. Naomi proceeded to get changed, stuffing what she had been wearing into the rucksack and tossing it over her shoulder.

"Jaykins, you got the other stuff?" Cook asked.

"Of course." JJ said as he handed cook another rucksack from underneath the desk he was sitting at. Cook pulled out two grappling irons.

"Christ, you lot came well equipped." Naomi said.

"Yeah, Effy has some contacts." Cook said. _She would_, Naomi thought. Effy was well connected in not just in everyday illegal activities, but in the underground network of adepts as well. Adepts tended to stick together, since being discovered as one would land you in prison, as it had for Naomi, or a dreaded Containment Facility, and no adept liked to think about what went on in there. That was part of the reason why Naomi had the friends she did; they were mostly adepts. Emily and Katie were fire adepts, Effy and Freddie earth adepts, JJ and Cook both water adepts and Thomas and Pandora were, like herself, wind adepts. Effy had already known Panda but had spotted the rest of them a mile off on the first day of college, and they had since, mostly, become friends.

"Right ladies, JJ, time to make a move I think," Cook declared as he finished changing from his borrowed uniform into black clothing like the rest of them, "coast clear Jaykins?"

"Yes, we have approximately seven minutes and forty-three seconds if we climb down from this window." JJ pointed to a window on one of the screens. "They really don't time their patrols well in this place, do they?" JJ asked semi-rhetorically.

"All the better for us, JJ." Emily pointed out, absent-mindedly creating flames in the palm of her hand and then extinguishing them again, while she looked up at Naomi who had her arm draped around Emily's shoulders.

"Lets go then," Naomi said, "I don't want to spend a second longer than I have to in this shit hole."

They crept out of the camera room, Cook again locking the door behind them. They crept silently, following JJ, who had politely declined to carry one of the guns, through a couple of corridors until they reached the window he was talking about. Naomi and JJ secured the grappling irons in place while Cook and Emily, holding their weapons, kept watch.

Cook took another swig of vodka before giving out safety clips to attach to the ropes. "Ladies first." Cook whispered and gestured towards the two ropes swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. Cook looked surprisingly nervous.

"What's the matter Cookie?" Naomi teased, "You aren't scared are you?"

Cook tried to hide his fear for a moment, but when he looked out of the window it was clear even in the poor light that his face lost some of its colour. "I bust you out of fucking prison, and you thank the Cookie Monster by taunting him? Shouldn't have fucking bothered." Cook muttered and gulped from his bottle again as Naomi and Emily both let out a tiny laugh.

"Can I just point out that we are wasting valuable time here?" JJ said, shaking slightly, his face creasing and his eyes closing as he finished the sentence.

"You heard the man, get climbing," Cook told them. Emily holstered her gun and took hold of the rope on the left, Naomi taking the right. Naomi descended unsteadily at first, but then recalled a school trip from several years ago and lesson in absieling during it that she'd taken part in. Once she recalled what she had learned she began to make her way down more confidently. Emily was somewhat less confident, and she was falling behind Naomi's pace so she slowed up and descended by Emily's side to reassure her. In just over a minute they had both made their way down and found themselves standing on a grassy area, with a wall that enclosed what they assumed to be a car park twenty metres to their left.

Emily tugged on the rope three times to signal Cook and JJ to begin their descent, which they did, but something was clearly wrong. They were descending rapidly and without fear, even Cook who had moments ago seemed so terrified. Cook jumped the last few metres and whispered to Emily and Naomi.

"Jaykins picked fucking fantastic time for his first fucking wrong calculation. He realized his mistake just in time; guard's going to be here in _thirty_ seconds, not two thirty." JJ jumped off his rope, clearly disorientated by the whole experience. "Naomikins, this would be a good time to…" Cook began, but Naomi was already on it. Using her psynergy she munipulated the wind to pick up the grappling hooks from fifty metres above and used it to pick them up and carry them down, before closing the window as well, just in time to see a shadow wander past.

"Fucking fantastic." Cook said, handing her the vodka. Naomi shrugged and drank some before passing it on to Emily, who turned up the offer.

"What's next then?" Naomi asked.

"We steal a car," Emily said.

"Once we get the all clear from Effy and Freddie," JJ was quick to point out, "they're going to knock out the guards at the control both for the vehicle barrier."

Cook motioned for them to run over to the wall and they stood with their backs to it, Cook peering round the corner, identifying a suitable vehicle. However when he pulled out his phone he only narrowly managed to avoid giving them away by swearing loudly. He read out a text to them, from Freddie: _Had sum probs, b there 30 mins l8, sry_. With that they all sat down and, after muttering under his breath, Cook once again passed the now nearly empty bottle around. Naomi and Emily were quite happy to pass the time in each other's company, though Cook and JJ were visibly on edge. They settled down to wait for the all clear from the two earth adepts.

Naomi had been up all night and after hours of lying awake on her wooden mattress, pacing her minuscule cell, then finally the cocktail of emotions and events that had been her escape so far, the fatigue finally caught up with her, and she fell asleep on Emily's shoulder.

Naomi dreamed of the morning before. Emily had gone out food shopping, and Naomi had been left at home, lying in bed, still trying to convince herself that it was probably a good idea to get up at some point, when she had heard a loud knocking at the door. She had known instantly that it wasn't Emily, she had her keys. Then the power behind the knocking increased, and Naomi knew it was bad news.

"Police! Special Branch! Open up!" The bellow came from downstairs, words that struck fear into the heart of any adept. Naomi had leapt out of bed with a speed she had not even thought possible. She decided that she would try to climb out of the window and get away, but when she peered out of the window, she discovered that police had surrounded the building.

Suddenly she heard the door being broken in from downstairs, and heard footsteps as the police began to search the house. She knew it was only a matter of seconds before they found her.

Naomi almost gave up, but instead summoned her powers. She, like most others, did not practice the use of psynergy much and therefore was a fairly weak adept. Nevertheless, she felt the sparks of lightning at her fingertips, and the air around her begin to twirl, increasing in pace.

"Found her!" Was the shout of one of the Special Branch officers as he caught sight of her. He fired his taser at her but, with a fair amount of will power; Naomi managed to bat it aside in the whirlwind she had created. She then sent a weak bolt of lightning at the man, just enough to render him unconscious (though she couldn't have managed much more even if she'd wanted to).

However, Naomi was soon overrun, and when the police with the real guns started taking aim, she knew there was no point in carrying on, if she went with them, she at least had a chance of escape.

Naomi was jolted out of her sleep by the repeated use of her name, by a voice she had all too recently feared she would never hear again. "Naomi," Emily said, "Naomi," when Naomi opened her eyes, Emily kissed her on her forehead as Emily slowly began raising her head up in the groggy fashion that Emily was so used to. "We're getting out of here, c'mon." Emily whispered.

Naomi grinned widely; she would be only too glad to be rid of the prison. Naomi noticed that there was a faint hint of light on the horizon and wondered just how long she had been asleep. There wasn't much light, just enough for it to be noticed. She guessed it had been more than the half hour Freddie had promised when she heard Cook on his phone saying: "Fucking finally Freds. You took your Fucking time." Cook then hung up. "Right ladies and gays, time to get the fuck out of here."

"Um, may I ask which one of those am I in that sentence?" JJ inquired.

"Whichever you prefer, Jaykins," Cook said as he ruffled JJ's hair. Cook peered around the wall and saw vehicle that would take all six of them (including Freddie and Effy), a prisoner transfer van with plenty for room for them to cram into in the back.

He led them on a short dash across the car park, taking cover behind various cars to avoid being spotted on their way out. When they got to the van, Cook sat in the driver's seat, and set about hot-wiring the van whilst JJ told him what to do. Cook produced a couple of tools from the same rucksack that housed the grappling irons and was done in a few minutes, while Emily and Naomi took seats next to each other in the back, which turned out to be two rows of uncomfortable seating facing each other with inadequate looking seatbelts jutting out at intervals which suggested that it could, in theory, hold up to ten people.

"Let's roll!" Cook declared as the van began to move. He drove them to the exit of the car park, then along a thin road to the exit booth where a barrier stopped them advancing any further. Cook nodded at the booth and they were let out, the barrier closing behind them, as the van came to a stop. "Naomikins, Ems, the back doors please?" Cook asked. They swung open the doors and helped Freddie and Effy climb in, also dressed in what seemed to be standard-issue prison break clothes.

"What the fuck Freds?" Cook didn't even bother with greetings.

"Sorry mate, we think we were being followed, we had to lose them." Freddie replied.

"Shit, well couldn't you have done it quicker?" Cook asked.

"You can either have something done quickly," Effy said, lighting up a cigarette as she took a seat opposite Naomi, Freddie sitting next to her and opposite Emily, "or you can have it done so you don't end up in jail, Cook. Which would you rather?" Cook mumbled under his breath, but accepted Effy's response. "How is prison then, Naomi?" Effy asked, both humour and interest in her tone.

"Shit." Naomi responded. "I want to know who tipped off the cops, so I can throttle them."

"Fortunately, you have friends willing to break you out." Emily gazed up at her, smiling.

"That's true." Naomi said, leaning down to kiss Emily, before she gave the rest of them a wider thank-you.

"How do you know you didn't give yourself away?" Freddie asked.

"Na, Naomikins is very discreet and they came out of nowhere. There must've been a tip-off," Cook said.

"Cook, this is the place." Effy told him. Cook parked the van at the side of the residential street that they had found themselves on and they all got out. Effy got them all to cross the road and they walked further down it for a short while until Effy stopped them outside a large people carrier.

The driver's door swung open and out jumped Katie, who looked as if she had had not had nearly enough sleep and as though she was in a particularly bad mood, even by her standards. Despite her obvious temper she walked over to embrace Emily. "You made it out without getting locked up with your girlfriend then." There was so much ice directed towards Naomi in Katie's voice that it amazed Naomi that the pavement around her was not frozen over. Before anybody had a chance to respond Katie spoke again. "Right, lezzers, and the rest of you losers, in the car now, I need my sleep!" Katie barked at them.

"I hope you don't sleep while you're at the wheel, Katiekins." Cook joked.

"Fucking hilarious, you twat." Katie slapped him over the head. "Now get in the car before I drive off without you."

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**Funny how I seem to be making a habit of starting my stories off in a prison. Anyway, thanks for reading and please let me know what you think about this one.**


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